Flyin' Floyd" Gilbert was a blue-collar hero from the golden age of dirt racing. Hailed as an "icon of dirt track racing" during his induction into the National Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame, Gilbert earned some 500 feature race victories and 16 track championships during a 30-year career, all while racing door to door against other legendary drivers on rugged ovals across Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and the deep south.

David M. McGee is an award-winning writer, journalist, and racing historian. He serves as the senior public address announcer at Bristol Motor Speedway, special events announcer at Bristol Dragway, and historian for both facilities.

He has 40-plus years in motorsports and is the author of six previous books on racing history, including four dealing with Bristol; the latest being BRISTOL: Stories of Oval and Drag Racing in Thunder Valley from CarTech Publishing.

He is a news reporter for the Bristol Herald Courier newspaper where he helped win the 2018 Scripps Howard Award for Community Journalism and a wide range of national, state, and regional press awards.

He is co-founder of the Central Appalachia Racing Archives, a new nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving, documenting, the promoting the auto racing heritage of East Tennessee, Southwestern Virginia, and East-Central Kentucky.

He is a voting member for the National Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame and Kentucky Motorsports Hall of Fame, in his native Kentucky. He is a graduate of Morehead State University.